How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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BOOK REVIEW: I’m still standing, by Lovefraud’s Mel Carnegie

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If you've been reading Lovefraud for awhile, you've probably been inspired by the many encouraging articles contributed by Mel Carnegie, a British woman now living in France who experienced her own devastating marriage to a sociopath. Now, you can read her complete story in her new book, I'm Still Standing, and be even more inspired. Mel has told us snippets of her story: how she lost her father, and then her mother, while she was young. How she was abandoned by her guardians. How she had a son, although the relationship didn't last. And then how she met the man who she thought was the love of her life, only to be totally betrayed. In I'm Still Standing, Mel takes us along on her journey, …

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PTSD from the military perspective

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Master Sgt. James Haskell, an Air Force gunner, was one of the first responders of 9/11, flying over Ground Zero as it smoldered below. A year later, he sought help for PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. He describes what he experienced and why he went for counseling. Many Lovefraud readers who were in relationships with sociopaths have exactly the same symptoms. PTSD: Many struggle, few tell, on Holoman.af.mil. Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader. …

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Seriously lacking: ‘Savvy Senior’ advice about online dating

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  Savvy Senior, a syndicated column that appears in more than 400 newspapers and magazines across the United States, calls itself an information service for baby boomers and senior citizens. The author, Jim Miller, recently published an article called Looking for love and companionship online. It started with a question from a reader: Dear Savvy Senior: What can you tell me about online dating for older people? My daughter has been urging me to give it a try, but at age 62, I'm a little hesitant. Lonely Senior Miller responded by describing the mechanics of online dating—how to choose a dating site and how to create a profile. He encouraged seniors to "make an effort" and n …

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Believing the fantasy rather than evidence

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Hundreds of people in northwest Western Australia have been sending money to criminals from West Africa. The con artists target vulnerable people through dating websites and social networking. Even when police officers show evidence that they are being scammed, some targets continue to send money. ABC news quoted a detective: "No matter how much we can explain and show them documents, photos etc to face the reality that they have been defrauded and the dream is not real, for a lot of victims it's too much for them to accept so they continue to believe the dream until they have nothing left," he said.  'Love' scam victims conned 'until nothing left,' on ABC.net.au   …

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What happens when we fail to take action against bad behavior

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A few articles in the news recently illustrate a disturbing failure in that can be seen in a multitude of situations throughout society. These cases are from the U.S., but I imagine the pattern applies just about anywhere. In Dallas, Texas, Antoine Flowers, hired for a top information technology post at Dallas City Hall, resigned after four months on the job. Two weeks later, he was arrested for stealing and pawning $10,000 worth of the city's iPads. The real question is how he got hired in the first place. Flowers' resume stated that he'd worked as a software engineer at NASA, was a college education director and had served in the Army, with top-secret clearances. This did not raise …

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BOOK REVIEW: The Aftermath of Rock ‘n’ Roll

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Like many of us here at Lovefraud, the author of this book thought she met her soul mate. He swept into her life, showered her with attention and affection, and, once she accepted his lavish but far-too-quick marriage proposal, quickly set out to use her, and then destroy her. The cover of this book lists the author as "Noelle R. Andrews," but that's a pseudonym. She wanted to protect her family and her career—she works as a radiologist. The perpetrator isn't identified either—his fake name is Adrian Mammon. This man worked—when he bothered to work—impersonating a famous, now aging, rock star. He treated his gigs as paid opportunities to get drunk and behave obnoxiously. When he wasn't wor …

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Triton High School sex scandal: What were they thinking?

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Last fall, a scandal erupted at Triton Regional High School in Runnemede, New Jersey. Three popular teachers—young and male—were arrested for inappropriate relationships with three female students. Two administrators—the principal and a vice principal—were also arrested for failing to report the relationships to the proper authorities. Read: 5 charged in alleged teacher-student relationships at New Jersey high school on CNN.com. Last Friday, Jeff Logandro, 32, and Daniel Michielli, 27, both math teachers, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit official misconduct and were sentenced to 30 days of home confinement and three years probation. They are also barred from teaching again in New …

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Revisiting Counseling Therapy

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Editor's note: The following article was written by the Lovefraud reader "Adelade." When I was trying to process the facts about my eldest son, I sought counseling therapy. This was on the heels of having been stalked and harassed by a would-be business partner. At that time, I was what is termed today as a "hot mess." I was attempting to run a commercial art business and was in such a state of hypervigilance and fear-based anxiety that I was unable to function. The counselor was cursory with my issues and ended my treatment after the insurance-allotted number of sessions. I didn't feel that I had accomplished any work with her, though she did allow me to rant and rave about my …

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Murder from both sides

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If you've been visiting Lovefraud for awhile, you probably know that Lovefraud author and member Joyce Alexander, who comments as "Ox Drover," is protesting the parole of her son, Patrick Alexander. Patrick Alexander was convicted of murdering 17-year-old Jessica Witt in January, 1992. Then, in 2007, while still in prison, Patrick sent a man to kill his mother, Joyce. She believes that if Patrick were paroled, he would come after her again. Joyce has expressed the sorrow that she feels for the family of Jessica Witt, whose life her son ended. Now we can understand what that family endured. Jessica Witt's aunt, MaryHellen Cuellar, has posted about the experience on a website called …

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